Israel submitted a number of papers describing the difficulties of using UN standards for Biblical names, as the Biblical names are so well-known and tourists who use maps would be confused if Israel transliterated the names rather than used the standard translations. In an addendum to one paper, Israel described how it proposes to name certain areas:
The Arab representatives to the UN, of course, protested this horrendous travesty. As Iran's PressTV "reports":
Israeli plot to change Arabic namesSo according to this article, the term"West Bank" is a time-honored Arabic name for the areas of Judea and Samaria! (In fact, that term did not exist before 1948 and it was coined by Transjordan when it illegally annexed the area. UN Resolution 181 refers to the area as "the hill country of Samaria and Judea."
The Arab representatives to the UN have opposed the Zionist's new plots to change the names of Palestine's cities and towns into Hebrew.
At the Ninth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names being held at United Nations headquarters in New York, the Zionist Regime proposed to change the name of 'West Bank' into a Hebrew name.
We have urged the Islamic nations and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) member countries to cooperate in confronting the Zionist Regime's attempts to change the names of the Palestinian cities and towns into Hebrew, Yahya Mahmassani, the Arab League ambassador to the UN told Alalam.
The Zionist Regime's attempt runs counter to the 1977 UN approved law regarding the respect for geographical names of countries and cities, the Syrian ambassador to the UN, Bashar al-Jafari said.
Changing the geographical names has nothing to do with geographical science and research but it only stems from the Zionist ideology and prejudices, said Riaz Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN.
Lying is so much a part of these Arabs' lives that they cannot distinguish fact from fiction.